Going through some training, my roommate mentioned that when, not if, he got rich, he would love to buy and drive a BMW.
I had no idea what he was talking about. So I asked and was regaled with enough tales and beer I figured I best get informed about the brand. It was promptly dismissed as too rich for my blood and as far out of my price (and age) range as a Cadillac then.
I only knew of Bentley, Jaguar, Renault and Triumph as foreign brands. Mercedes was also too exotic for my pocket then.
I later learned a bit more about cars.

The first VW I got to drive was a girlfriend's. Three speed shift, and a handbrake made for some fun driving. I think I fell in love with her handling of it before I fell for that lady. Remember the ads when the car appears waterproof? Her handling of that car through snow and hills was impressive. Three shifts, the roar of the engine and still legal at under thirty miles per hour! The most fun at low speeds I had up to that time. We will not mention parking times.
Best of all, she let me drive it! I was glad I had learned how to drive a stick shift.

Folks,

Fittop:

We once had a member whose father was manager of the BMW plant that was to locate in NC but changed their minds and moved to SC instead. I never managed anything worth keeping quiet about in any Volkswagen. You and your date must have been contortionists, my friend. Now, what I accomplished in a beautiful, perfectly up-kept copper colored 1957 Chevy in the early 1960s must forever be on the QT.

I once owned a brand spanking new Opel GT which to most folks looked like a small version of the Corvette. That was the car I went on my honeymoon on. I loved that car. It was a beautiful red color with black interior. You'd think it was a Porsche; I had leather driving gloves and everything. A fun car but not, SIGH, a family car. It was parked in my finance's driveway one night and my father-in-law to be backed into it. Not much damage thank goodness. The after market fog-lamps I'd installed myself were mangled but that was about it. Despite that I was on the verge of tears for a bit. Remember the first dent or scratch on your first new car?

A long life buddy of mine bought an Austin-Healy 2000. It was British racing green with brown leather interior, lotsa chrome in the right places. We used to take part in Gymkhanas and road races. He would drive and I navigate with stop watches and a clipboard. I bought a book with times and tables for easy mileage reference. That was great fun. He has that car to this day and drives it only in parades. A dream car if you were savvy enough to keep those SU carbs well tuned. It sported a Steebro exaust system I helped install along with other after market goodies. He introduced me to the NPR radio show "Car Talk" which I continue to listen to on Saturday mornings today. Sadly, one of the brothers died and everything is a re-run these days. That doesn't matter in the least. It is just as informative and entertaining. You can also find the "Car Talk" website online

Chaps,

Blimey! When is it going to warm up! Sun shining bright enough in a clear sky this morning but wind chill is around 35F.

I will expect a marked improvement when I return on Tuesday or I will want to know why. Don't make me come up there...

Folks,

While we whip out our cobwebbed slide rules to calculate the probability of lightning strikes in and around the vicinity of Dux, let me say he is not alone in the weather refrigerator. It is but 49F. here in sunny Carolina. In fact, the temp dropped to 30F. last night. A warming trend starts this weekend .Get a grip, Dux. In too short a time we shall all be vigorously complaining about the summer heat.

My little granddaughter is about to make a grand sacrifice in a cause dear to my own heart. She has volunteered to have her beautiful hair shaved off to support the local cancer drive. My wife and her youngest sister died within a year of each other from that terrible disease. The hair comes off tomorrow and already she is half-way to her contribution goal. Yup! Papa is proud of her. Now if they’d let me participate, nature has just about already done the job of the barber.

If you had the choice of a long flight in a pristine Spitfire, Hurricane, P51-D Mustang, Focke Wolf, BF109 Messerschmidt , P47-D Thunderbolt or a big old Lank, which would you choose? If you’d like to vote for your favorite plane here’s how. Just write your name on the back of a crisp US $22.00 bill and mail it to HWH Hall, Studley Grange, UK c/o LeRoy. He’ll know what to do with it. Otherwise, you can just post your vote right here.

When I was a small lad I could not imagine a world without movies, planes, phones, cars, radios, stereo, indoor toilets and electric lights. My son couldn’t have imagined all that plus a world without TV, electronic games, cassette tapes, electric guitars and other modern conveniences. His kids can’t conceive of a life without all the former, plus smartphones, the Internet, flat-screen TVs, etc. I wonder what wonderful things await my grand kids kids that we cannot possibly imagine and will not be around to enjoy with them? Hint: If you can imagine it, it can be.

Folks,
Dux:

No doubt you are aware we have had to say a final farewell to a legend this week.
Charles Edward Anderson....... Berry
AKA: Chuck Berry
As a teen, he was sent to prison for three years for armed robbery. He did more time for various things. A very questionable one in my view cost him 22 months of his life. He began producing hits in the 1950s, including 1958's "Johnny B. Goode," and had his first No. 1 hit in 1972 with "My Ding-a-Ling." With his clever lyrics and distinctive sounds, Berry became one of the most influential figures in the history of rock music. Berry died on March 18 at the age of 90. The song "My Ding-a-Ling" became what he called his Alma Mater. At the end of a concert, I've seen them have to just about drag the man off the stage he loved performing so much.

Gents,

Roger, no need to be embarrassed about being forgetful about German cars. I also forgot the BMW. And Audi. Thank you Fittop, for sharing your stories about BMW and VW.

I read somewhere that Hitler's Mercedes would have saved JFK from the bullet(s?) fired upon him.

Sun has been shining but it is still not summer, not even proper spring. I did manage to quickly gulp down a Campari after resurrecting the garden furniture from winter storage. Sunday we switch to DST so I figured that now was the time, weather permitting or not. Anyway, I needed that drink after another epic bike ride where I shed some 1500 calories. Needless to say that the rest of the day I've been extremely lazy. Saturday I'm going for 5 hours of Yoga, and Sunday I plan another bike ride. Dear me, no rest for the wicked. Such is the ever changing weather here that every chance to get outdoors must be grabbed by the scruff of its neck although the yoga presumably is indoors.

Berry they say, invented Rock music. I don't know if that is true but surely his duck-walk was as legendary as his music and no doubt countless musicians have been inspired by him as were Lennon & McCartney amongst others.

Cats are interesting creatures in as such that they seem to copy human behaviour and it was explained to me that they do so because they find that humans have developed a successful strategy for survival and cats secretly admire humans. This apparently is why some cats pee in the toilet instead of in the kitty litter and why they mimic children's voices, especially babies crying because they observe that babies have huge success in being cared for once they start crying. To quote the inimitable Peter Sellers; "Not a lot of people know that". I think he actually borrowed that phrase from somewhere. Where Sellers got that line from escapes me at the moment. Perhaps Dux can remember?

I certainly wouldn't choose a Me-109 to fly on the same grounds that I never took to Il-2 Sturomvik where you could only fly the planes of the bad guys. Anyway, that Me-109 pilot who crashed in Denmark in late 1944 has now been identified as Corporal Hans Wunderlich, 19 years of age, no living relatives. Crashed the thing in a bog probably even before he had had a taste of the fair sex and the Wehrmacht thought that "Zis ist Sinnlos" so they left the poor boy there.

Chaps,

Rog,

I had not heard that Chuck Berry had passed on. A sad loss. His early riffs were used by many and in my book there is more than justification in the claim that he inspired many a rock guitarist with his flamboyant, gritty presentations.

Hard choices you give for a memorable flight in a flying legend. After some thought, assisted by several cans of lager I decided on the Hurricane because of its crucial participation in the Battle of Britain.

If the choice was open to any type, a siren-assisted series of steep descents in a Ju87 would certainly concentrate the mind.

Folks,

Gentlemen:

Fine choices as to a good ride. We all know the Hurricane did more damage to the Luftwaffe than our beloved Spit mainly because there were so many more of them, I guess. The JU87 was obsolete by the BoB but it was a fantastic plane, airborne artillery really. It took courage to fly one of those on a mission to England at least on the second mission for sure. I agree that dive would be breathtaking with the sirene screaming and the ground rushing up until the automatic system took over and you were pulling a lot of gs going up again. Now, why did I instantly think of the Grace Brothers lift when I wrote, "going up"?

C51 might likely choose the Lank. I must say that today I have the greatest respect for that aircraft and its crews. The 109 was, in several ways, more than a match for the Spitfire. Some say it was superior especially in the hands of a good pilot. the problem with fuel it had made the difference some say. If that were completely true, why then did Galland ask Goering for a squadron of them? I could have added so many other prop driven planes to the list but many choices can sometimes hinder decisions. Feel free to write in your favorite plane and tell us why it is your favorite if you know why. Jets too, why not? I'd like a ride in a 262 and that is possible however those Swallows with two seats just don't look right to me. A ride inF-86 would be grand as well. OK, we should pick just one. Since I can now add a plane a ride in a big Pratt & Whitney Wasp engine driven F4U Corsair with those distinctive gull wings and that giant prop would be super. The later model please, with the bubble canopy.

The Audi, I clean forgot about the Audi. A co-worker loved hers. She could not say enough good things about it. I forget which model hers was. It was a used car. She bragged about it all the time. Right up until the day a door fell off it in the parking lot at lunchtime. As I recall, she had a similarly unpleasant difficulty with her next used car. That was a Jeep Grand Cherokee. My son owned one of those once and had no problems with it. In fact, he eventually sold it for a profit.

it has warmed to 68F. pleasant degrees here fellows with partly sunny skies. Cats who share our lives are not too different from their big cousins. It is a good thing Dux has no cat, else should he forget to feed it when he staggered home from the pub one especially festive night he might be attacked and eaten. I've seen this one eyeing me up more than once when my granddaughter had forgotten to fill her bowl. Now that she has survived the pain of Estrus, the mollifying effects have also subsided. She is not as friendly now but she is quiet again and I am satisfied beyond words with the trade.

I assume the German airman's body has been exhumed if they have identified it. With no living relatives, I wonder what may come of the remains?

Folks,

Well, today is a new Saturday. Temps around my house will rise into the mid 70s F. We’ll see even warmer temps next week. The high 70s may prevail. I hope you are enjoying better weather this weekend Dux. Soon, all too soon, even if the fish aren’t biting the mosquitoes will be. I wonder if the Welsh bugs are as big as are ours? Would you believe me if I told you with a straight face that our mosquitoes grow so large that antiaircraft batteries used to use them for target practice in WW2? OK. How about without a straight face then?

I found a tiny program that adds the satisfying “click” of an old IBM typewriter to every keystroke. I’ve been typing away at one keyboard or another since I was about 9 years of age. It tends to get behind on the strokes since I type rather fast especially for someone who only uses two fingers.

I don’t think it is the software but rather the speed of the notebook getting the buffer clogged up. I’m looking at other possibilities. “ClicKey” looks good but it failed to install a required .dll file for some reason and shut down with an error message. That program offers the choice of 26 different individual keyboard sounds. I’ve sent an e-mail to their technical department requesting assistance. If the hesitation problem is what I think I am wasting my time anyway.

We were discussing fantasy flights in favorite aircraft, or at least I was. You seemed to be narrowed in on that topic as well. There is a plethora of videos on YouTube showing flights in many warbirds. I’m sure you knew that now you know I do too.

This Russian Blue kitty is amusing herself tearing half a paper towel to ribbons right now. She will take one out of a waste basket if you forget and leave one in there for her to find. She never eats the paper she just rips it to sh shreds. It is a much quieter pastime than what she was up to last Saturday so I am all for it. The cost of catnip has gone up. I wonder if there might be a job somewhere for a cat that can make confetti? If you hear of one, let me know.

We were recently discussing western movie actors. Now, several really big stars made a western or two, some of them like “Shane” with Alan Ladd was and is a classic. We weren’t writing about those guys. We were writing about character actors like Jack Elam, Big Boy Williams, Strother Martin and such. There were "cowboy" stars as well. Big name actors almost exclusively acting in Westerns. There was Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Rex Allen, Lash Larue, Johnny Mack Brown, and quite a few well before my time in silent films and early "Talkies" that I never saw in a picture.

I met Johnny Mack brown one fine Saturday morning at the local “A” cinema. His twin nickel-plated “peacemaker” .44s or .45s fascinated me. That theater was a beautiful, magical place for us kids. The interior was made up like a western town with a strong south of the border influence. The midnight blue sky painted ceiling actually had wispy clouds and twinkling stars. It was grand. Sadly, long after I grew up and moved away a big multiplex cinema came riding into town. Apparently, the town just wasn’t big enough for both of them. Suddenly the town fathers decided there was a great need for another parking lot precisely where the Center theater stood. Today that parking lot is still there but few cars park in it. I never have.

I’ve been to the new multiplex but mates the ambiance just ain’t what I remember. Times change, we grow more and more people. More and more people see a good thing and move into town or the outskirts of town. The old buildings of our youth can’t handle the crowd anymore. They have to go. New, larger, more modern building take their place. It’s called progress. It has other names. I can think of a number of things that lovely theater might have housed. Apparently unlike other places I know of no one was interested.

It has been some time since I was in my hometown and a longer time since I passed by that parking lot. Maybe that is gone and something better is in its place? That big multiplex is still there. How people can afford to go to movies now is beyond me. By the time a family of five buy tickets, popcorn and a soda someone is out about a hundred bucks. Considering I used to go see a triple feature and 10 cartoons on a Saturday morning for a quarter and get popcorn for a dime and a big soft drink for another quarter I suppose it IS progress at that.

JRT, Folks:

Glad that it's warming to tolerable temperatures in your area. We are getting a respite from the swinging between 39 to 84 degrees F. in this area. Sixties to 80s yesterday, starting in the middle fifties to seventy-four today and a threat of severe weather with eighties tomorrow. The small amount of rain yesterday did little for the yards and gardens yesterday. Hard to know when to try to weed an feed.

JRT, please give that little lady a hug from us for her efforts on the cause.

I read the question on airplanes as being one of comfort in a long flight. For that I might prefer the P-47, seeing as how I remember Republic Aircraft had a reputation on making comfortable cockpits. For survival purposes my answer might be different. The good old T-33 T-bird seem to have adequate shoulder room in case of ejection; but that was not an option in any of the prop planes.
The quickness of controls would affect your maneuver preferences in a scrap.
I do remember sitting in an F-94 with plenty of room and the pilot stating you almost had room for coffee. Hopefully that coffee was an option in the Lank?
Sitting on a parachute, or having the weight of one on your back does not make for a comfortable trip of more than four hours.
But I doubt pilot or crew comfort was a heavy consideration in aircraft design in those days. Nevertheless, a cup of coffee has always found its way into cockpits.

Gents

Apparently Galland did ask for a squadron of Spitfires, he said so in his autobiography according to this source .

For my choice of aircraft to fly in, it would have to be the Lanc. Not only did it have four engines so if one or two failed, I might have a hope of reaching terrafirma in one piece, it also had central heating although it fried the navigator and did not flow well into the rest of the aircraft, notably the rear gunner was in a freezing cold turret. Some gunners even removed the perspex so they could have a better view of potential night fighters. Finally it was also equipped with a toilet a.k.a an Elsan. The B-17 had holes in the fuselage so that the waist gunners could move and direct their guns.

Tonight we go from normal time to summer daylight saving time so one hour less of night tonight.

Folks, Fittop,

Your weather is similar to ours in that when seasons change we have a weather roller coaster. Before long we will settle down to just hot, hotter and hottest with humidity for seasoning. If the weather improves in Wales we will probably see less of our avid angler. He could at least send us fish for the mess.

MG:

Not much thought for comfort, more to expense with those planes falling like rain. I wonder if they had built more Lancs, installed Nordan bomb sights and grounded the forts if things would have been different. Fewer crew members and a much greater bomb load make more sense to me. They could have been manned by brits and Americans. The B17s were great planes and their crews second to none. The tactics of the Eighth AF just needed more intelligent thought with much less hubris. No matter how many guns you point at the fighters from no matter how tight and how many boxes they still needed fighters to protect them.

Galland found room for his ash tray and cigar in his fighter. I don't know about coffee Fittop. He also fitted his F model with a nifty telescopic sight for a while. Another good idea on paper that did not quite work in practice.

Don't forget to change all the clocks and watches, especially that big alarm clock tied to the handlebars of your bike to wake you if you should drop off on early morning excursions. No fear of that when Danish snow flies and northern winds blow. Soon it will not only be spring but feel like it in ancient Denmark. So it has always been, so it shall always be.

Folks,

Fittop:

Thank you for an extra opportunity for a hug from my granddaughter today. We are proud of her. She will be off soon to have the cutting done. Here is the last photo taken of her while she was not sans hair. BTW has anyone noticed that you can no longer upload a photo from your desktop? Now you must enter the URL address. If you don't see a photo you are not going blind and it is not a pix of her wearing a white sheet in a blizzard. I failed to make the thing work. I don't like the new setup. OK I will like it better if this works.

IT DID NOT WORK AT LEAST NOT WITH GOOGLE PHOTOS.

Roger, if you use the full editor and look below the message box you should find the attachment manager which you can use to upload your photo.

Folks,

Thanks, MG: U da go-to guy in Denmark.

Folks,

I expected that option to be up top with the other two. Still, it should have worked with the URL to Google Photos cloud. I never looked beyond the emoji. The caption I added did not show so I still have something to learn. I'll get it. It was actually easier than doing it the old way.

My three- year older grandson would be participating in the shearing, however, he is visiting a prospective college with a church group this weekend. That is a bit early I think, for he hasn't even got his learners permit yet. Then it will be quite some time before he can get his driver's license. I'm sensitive about going to school early. I started school on my 6th birthday and doing so I became the youngest kid in that school. Intellectually I was ready, emotionally not so much. Then I started college early and that was my fault this time. I should have waited a bit longer. My girlfriend at the time contracted a serious illness during what would have been our senior year in high school. I was already gone by then and found it very difficult to keep my mind on my university studies. What was I thinking? What was the big hurry?

Folks,

BTW, "T" dad reminds me she has already met and surpassed her goal of $500.00 in donations.
Go girl! Your Nanny and aunt Becky must be very proud. I am. I will spare you fellows the pix of her bald.

Folks,

It is another sunny Sunday. 56 degrees F. right now at 10:30 AM. I suppose that “Sunday” might be a misnomer in other places with no sun today. Wales perhaps?

Have you noticed how so many men with reseeding hairlines or just a fringe behind their ears tend to wear their ball caps all the time? My son does that. He is afflicted with hair genes from his mom’s side of the family. He even wore his hat when he was in bed in the hospital. You see, there were these cute nurses who seemed to really want to take care of him and he thought it might cool their interest if he removed his cap.

That has given me a great idea for a money making scheme. STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE! LeRoy, you guard the door. Men you can get in on the ground floor. We’ll be richer than avarice. You actually appear skeptical. Here is the big, big deal. We will patent and manufacture ball caps impregnated with Rogaine! When that Rogaine wears off or the hair grows so much the old hat no longer fits, the customer will have to rush right out and buy another cap. All this would be done online with no bricks and mortar.

Great idea, right? We’ll be richer than Scrouge McDuck on IOU payment day at the McDuck Money Bin, right? You guys are in right? Dux? MG? Surely you Fittop? Are you fellows nuts? Et Tu Fittop? Men I’m telling you that you will live in 90 story mansions, your butler will have a butler. The Federal government will borrow from you. Dux, you can have your own Hurricane and build it from scratch on your huge estate complete with its mile-long trout pond and your private female hook sharpener. Carnarvon Castle might be something to look at as well. MG, you could afford to have a gold plated, three-seat bike complete with two Danish girls, one fore and one aft, to do your uphill pedaling for you. We can’t lose.

Come on guys, why NOT? You only have to put in a million apiece. Dux, I’m not sure what that would be in Euros or pounds after Brexit. A paltry sum lads compared to the rewards. Fantastic value for money. Not since MG came up with the idea to offer rides in our Spitfires to the public for 5 quid each have we had such a great money making opportunity. Yes, I know that came a cropper when Colonel Blimp's daughter was flying with Dux and that Hun came from nowhere and shot him down. I know, Dux, not your fault, I also thought C51 had negotiated a no-fly zone for the Bosh in that sector. perfidy! You simply cannot trust some enemies.

I heard that libelous remark, Dux. This is absolutely not the same spiel I used when I tried to con..bil.tric...flimfla...persuade you boys to buy those cheap railroad stocks. How was I to know they were for Lionel trains? They did well enough. Every kid wants one. Before I go further, none of you chaps have ever seen a 50s TV show called "Sergeant Bilko", have you? You say that you have Fittop? OK, you are excused. Please report to matron and just tell her your head needs examining.....yes, again. Why are the rest of you looking at Fittop with envy? He is about to go through an excruciating physical examination. Why did you go back to your chair Fittop? Out! See him out, LeRoy. There's a good chap.

Where was I? Yes, I also remember that milking machine scheme MG. We’d go out and sell milking machines to all the farmers who had no cows. Then we would invest heavily in beef futures and make a killing when they all had to go out and buy cows. Hey, C51 sold two machines to two farmers who already had a cow and took their only cow as down payment. Now that, my friends, indicates C51 is a born salesman. OK, who’s in? Dux, MG, anyone? Anyone at all? Where did everybody go? I’ll go get Fittop from matron's clutches before she puts his head in that pseudo brain scanner I built from a garbage bin, car tail lights and washing machine parts.

Fittop old sod, so glad to see you are no worse for wear. Everyone was absolutely crazy about the cap scheme. Where are they? Well, they all rushed off to ...to ...their banks to whip up the money of course. Now, dependable Fittop, I can always depend on you, how much can I put you down for? Ok, if that is the way you feel about it. Forget it, but mark my words, one day someone else will think of that idea and we’ll all be dow at the P&P crying in our beer when they will be drinking champagne.

Congratulations to an inside-and-out beautiful lady on reaching her goal! Your family should be very proud.
Congratulations to all the family. Thank you for sharing.

After reading some of the entries, I was searching my memory and realized that there were no instances of bringing coffee into airplanes. The beverages were all consumed before entering the machine. If anything, one of the last parts of a pre-flight, assuming no brass was around, was a stop to check one on the main tires before a mission.- More a superstition than need.-Most of the time.

Folks,

Thanks, pal. I will pass along your congratulations. When she came home I was shocked to see the results. She is not actually slick bald but the trim is mighty close-cropped. Some women can be just as pretty even without their hair. My late wife was like that. That girl in the first Star Trek movie was like that. My granddaughter is like that.

Large containers of beverages might have created a hazard in a fighter. I have related in the past how Dux discovered this to his dismay. Even if the large container should be the pilot there might be problems. Perhaps this difficulty was the inducement to invent the pilot's relief tube? On one occasion Dux has been put in hack when he passed low over the base, his Spit inverted with the hood back relieving himself while directly over the Brass's private parking area. He was making a statement we all could appreciate however he had failed to take into account the effect the wind passing over and into the cockpit would have.

I guess those bomber crews might have brought hot beverages aboard in a thermos of some sort, especially on the unpressurized planes that were so cold. Of course, they were all cold the further back you went as was pointed out above. How those guys managed to do their seriously dangerous job without freezing to death I do not know. I had a relative who was a bombardier on a B-25. He never spoke about his experiences but he did take me up in his light plane when I was a kid.